Florida State center Bryan Stork's maturity and drive stand out as Lions look for young backup

May 3, 2014

Florida State offensive lineman Bryan Stork holds up a piece of the Bank of America Stadium turf following a 45-7 victory against Duke in the ACC Championship game in Charlotte, N.C., on Saturday, Dec. 7, 2013. / MCT

Bryan Stork was 5 years old when he got his first job working at his family’s Italian restaurant in Mattoon, Ill., a small manufacturing community about 45 minutes south of Champaign.

Angelo’s Pizza was famous for its Wednesday night special back then, a $3.39 plate of spaghetti, and Stork earned $5 a night making pizzas and washing dishes and scrubbing all the hard-to-reach places like behind the ice machine.

He used the money he made to buy Legos, mostly, and he learned enough lessons about hard work that, years later, when he went to Florida State as a lightly recruited tight end, no one should have been surprised to see him leave as one of the nation’s best centers.

“My dad was a grinder and I picked up on that as a young kid,” Stork said. “He did everything he could to make sure I had what I needed and everything you think of a father, it was pretty much him ... he always worked his butt off and he’s very tough — probably the toughest person I met in my life. He definitely passed that on to me and he taught me how to work.”

Stork is projected to go in the middle rounds of next week’s draft, and could be a fit for a Lions team looking to find a long-term replacement for center Dominic Raiola.

He won the Rimington Trophy as the nation’s best center last year, when he helped Florida State win the national championship, and he spent time talking with Lions coach Jim Caldwell and general manager Martin Mayhew, a Florida State graduate, at his March pro day.

Raiola, who signed a one-year deal to return to the Lions for a 14th season in February, has said he has at least two more years left.

But the Lions haven’t hid the fact that they’re in the market for a young backup.

“I’ve always been a team guy and as long as I’m doing my job I should have a job on the field,” Raiola said last week. “I’m not going to last forever. It’s not an easy position to learn, but if they draft somebody new then so be it. I guess I get to teach them.”

Stork, who started 40 games over the past four seasons at right guard and center, said he’s willing to play an understudy role if need be as a rookie.

“I’ll do whatever the team needs me to do,” Stork said. “Whatever team picks me up, whatever they need, I’ll do it and I’ll probably do it for cheaper than the last guy. And I’m just going to learn. If they need me to play right away, I will. If they don’t, they don’t, and I’ll take advantage of it like a redshirt year.”

Colorado State’s Weston Richburg and USC’s Marcus Martin, who made a pre-draft visit to the Lions, are widely considered the top two centers in the draft. But Stork’s maturity and drive stand out.

Stork moved to Florida as a 12-year-old to live with his father after his parents divorced partly for football reasons, and he spent the later part of his high school years taking care of his father, who died of colon cancer during his senior season at Vero Beach High.

“I wanted to have a normal life so I tried to make the best I could and I just took everything in stride,” Stork said. “My dad, when he passed away that night, it was on a Wednesday night, I went to school the next day ’cause I wanted to be able to go to practice for the next day. And then we had a game on Friday, so I didn’t take much time to grieve but I moved on. I don’t think he’d want me to do any different, just live with it and it is what it is and just live your life.”

Already, Stork said he’s moved on to the next stage in his life — the NFL.

When he left Tallahassee in January, he packed most of his belongings in a box, including tokens from last year’s championship run, and doesn’t plan to open them anytime soon.

“I’ve got bigger and better things,” he said. “It’s cool. I’ve got a box of crap from that year like I do the other years and I’ll just save them and they’ll make a sweet man cave someday.”

As for what whoever drafts him will get on the field, Stork said they can expect sweet things there, too.

“They’re getting a tough, mentally and physically, intelligent football player,” he said. “I’m not a crazy, freakish athlete, I’m just a ballplayer.”